


Disconnected

by CaptainRivaini



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood and Violence, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character(s), Tevinter, Tevinter Imperium, back story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainRivaini/pseuds/CaptainRivaini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels like there's something missing. Maybe it's time to fill in the blanks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i hope the cake was worth it

**Author's Note:**

> Events of Quill Lavellan's life, not in chronological order.

**T** evinter was no place for a child.

Indiyah had told Tiseius Vel this many times, but he only smiled that condescending smile of his that made her grit her teeth and for the hand wrapped around the dish of food the cook had prepared for him to shudder slightly under her grip.

“She’s not a child anymore,” he argued back constantly, grey eyes flickering from her and then back to Roland, wrinkles creasing in confusion at the glares he received back, “surely you must know that, that she stopped being a child the moment her magical ability was founded? It is how things are in Tevinter, and I warned you of it the moment you set foot into Minrathous.”

The elf bowed her head, a look of submission to those whom did not know her. To Roland it was quite different, and he placed his warm, dark hands on his wife’s arm and rubbed the pale flesh tenderly.

 _‘Not now, love’_ , were the words that his fingers inked into Indiyah’s skin.

It had been no choice of theirs to be captured by Vel and the rest of the Magisters that had been accompanying him, travelling through the lands of the Silent Plains; but she could not deny that survival rather than death had been her own choice, yet at the same time not.

Her stomach hadn’t shown anything at that time, but the Creators be damned if they thought that the sacrifice of her unborn child would be a thing she would allow to occur.

Roland hadn’t understood at first, Dalish at heart. Death over capture, death over survival: _‘the shemlen will not take us alive!’_

When he had touched her for the first time, felt that life inside of her, that little kick…His face had fallen and Indiyah hadn’t known what to do but cup his face in her hands and allow him to drag her to the cold floor of their new home in Vel’s mansion, sobbing and praying to the Creators that they would spare them this one cruelty, spare them both.

Roland was always so tender, and it was this tenderness in his heart that made Indiyah stare up at him as Vel continued to speak to them both in that same smug manner as he always spoke.

“Your daughter is nearing her eighth name day now, her magical ability was at the age of 7 months –“

“Then why won’t you let us see her?” They both asked, and if they hadn’t known any better they could almost accuse Vel of wavering in his gaze on them.

He took the dish from Indiyah’s hands and placed it on the side table next to his black, snake-sculptured throne, fingertips steeped together.

His mouth was set into a firm grimace: “We spoke of this. Quill’s time is mostly spent being educated, with her magic, her Tevene, philosophies, society’s expectations of her – even dance. Her time cannot be disturbed constantly by both of your presence, it would harm her education.”

Indiyah moved away from her husband at that, pushing him away when she felt his hot breath at the back of her neck (so ready to whisper reassurances, fake and useless) and his hands around her waist. No, she would not remain silent any longer.

It had been years since she had been in one single room with her daughter, only catching glimpses of her now and then when Vel’s bodyguards dragged her young, elven child through the kitchens to get something to eat.

She had tried to lie to herself, to say that it had been enough to see her child (whom looked so much like Roland it was unbelievable, same nose, same eye shape and colour and oh those freckles…) in snapshot images, but…

“And what of my language, my philosophies, even,” she stuttered then, out of anger however, not fear, “even my dance? We are Dalish, she is Dalish! And no matter what has been said in the past, it is wrong, downright despicable, for you to take this away from us-“

“You stopped being Dalish the moment you crossed the gates into Minrathous!” Vel interrupted, slapping a hand on his throne’s arm and standing up with a sneer, “the girl is being taught of what is expected of someone with her talents, as agreed when she was born and first started to show signs!”

Roland grabbed hold of her then, his arms were tense and tight around her slim waist and Indiyah briefly wondered if he was going to say anything in agreement with Vel before that was dashed completely, her husband’s warm voice enough to send a brief shot of relief through her heart.

He squeezed her and then moved aside, and the strength she could see in that soft heart made Indiyah sigh, exhausted and relieved both.

“Forgive my wife, Magister Vel,” Roland bowed as low as he could, the eyes that had once belonged to a hunter now belonged to that of a servant whom was willing to submit in order to get his way, no matter how slow it would take, “we would just like an opportunity to talk to her now and then, as you can see from my wife’s reaction…it has been some time since we’ve spoken to her, surely-“

The sound of the main chamber’s iron doors screeched so loudly that it drew Roland to a halt on what he had been about to say, his eyes averting from the scowling Magister to look over his shoulders to see where the noise had come from, and what it had brought with it.

Indiyah turned also, her breath hitching at the sight of brown skin, freckles, green eyes and uncontrollable curly blonde hair. It was nothing short of a daydream she was sure, even if she had seen Quill merely days before with the same look of disinterest on her face.

Quill only looked at her briefly before she passed Indiyah and Roland both, her arms crossed together and her lip angrily forming into a pout.

“I’m tired of being schooled every day,” her voice was shrill and so breathy that it took Indiyah a few seconds more than necessary to fully understand what her daughter spoke of, but when she did?

Oh how it hurt.

The bodyguard that Indiyah hadn’t noticed let out a sigh that she knew from experience was the sigh she herself had expected to let out when raising her child, the sigh of someone whom had more than enough for one day.

“She refuses to listen to the Professor you’ve hired for her, Magister,” the guard explained, eyeing the elven girl with a hard look in his dark eyes, “the Professor asked me not to punish her like you said, he wants to give her more time to relax – his words, not mine, ser.”

Indiyah felt Roland’s hand brush against hers the moment Quill looked at them both again, eyebrow arched in suspicion (no doubt at why they were looking at her in such a way) for a mere moment before their child’s hard look softened into a simple frown.

Vel’s smile met that gesture and a fear like no other grasped Indiyah’s heart, a cold fist grasping at the organ.

He looked over at her, with that wicked smile still on his face. “Perhaps it would be better if you let her do just that then, here, have these servants take her to their workstations in the kitchens.”

“-and as for the Professor, call him here. I want a word with him about his refusal to follow orders.”

Quill looked at them again, eyes cold and distant still but familiar enough that Indiyah felt Roland’s grip on her tighten gently. They still had boundaries, they still couldn’t rush and grasp at Quill like they may have wanted to do, there were some things they just had to fight.

“You look like me,” Quill told them and Indiyah wondered if she was saying this because they were elves or if she realized how similar they looked to be _family_ , “but I’m hungry now. Let’s go.”

Roland stepped forward and held out his hand, instinct really but it took everything Indiyah had not to berate him for it.

Vel watched them, his smile long gone but his eyes spoke of something that was much like a threat than anything else they had experienced before. She knew it was a dangerous game then, that Quill was an experiment and he fully expected her to be set in the Tevinter image or else.

Yet when Quill took Roland’s hand (even if she looked confused in doing so, and sort of annoyed at the same time) Indiyah couldn’t help the smile that she sent the Magister’s way.

 _‘She’s my child,_ ’ she thought, moving to take Quill’s other hand, _‘not yours, never yours.’_

* * *

**Q** uill watched them as though she knew a secret about them that she wasn’t privy to tell, and in reality of course she knew a secret about them that she wasn’t privy to tell.

Of course she did.

But she felt no guilt in telling them anyway: “Professor Reks is going to die because he didn’t hit me when I said I didn’t want to listen in class anymore.”

The male elf stopped and so did Quill, thinking this was what he wanted from her.

When he did look down at her she noticed that there was a small frown on his face, and a look in his eye that spoke volumes. She didn’t quite know what the look meant, but it seemed negative. Not that she really cared, there were so many things she found herself not caring about.

The woman on her other side pressed fingers to her cheek, tilting her face up to look at her.

“They hit you?”

Quill quirked her eyebrow at her, defiance deep within her eyes, “Yes. Why do you care? You’re a servant, you probably always get hit.”

The woman looked affronted at that, but Quill shrugged and squeezed both of their hands to gather their attention. They were heading to the kitchens weren’t they? She hoped so – she was starving and Reks hadn’t even allowed her to have a snack.

It was why she hadn’t wanted to learn anymore, Reks hadn’t wanted to give her a snack and so in return she hadn’t wanted to listen. The guard had watched as Reks struggled to even raise his voice, and Quill had watched the guard watch him with a sickly fascinated glint in her eye.

All she had wanted was something to eat.

When they arrived at the kitchens she was brought to sit on a crate packed full of seaweed and shells, the woman who had led her in here by the hand quickly grabbing another crate and shoving it against hers so fast that Quill almost lost balance and was saved by the male elf’s hand on her shoulder.

“Careful Indiyah,” his voice was as soft as his dark hand, Quill wondered what he had done (or what he hadn’t done) to get hands like that.

‘Indiyah’ smiled sheepishly at her in response.

Quill frowned, the smell of sweetcakes and cooked fish flavoured with Tevene spices in the air making her stomach rumble and her patience to waver.

“I said I was hungry.”

The elf scowled and that alone surprised Quill, never mind the words that came out of her mouth soon after: “Don’t be rude, you can’t just demand and expect to get what you want. Hasn’t Vel taught you better than that?”

“Indiyah-“The male elf began to protest again and from the looks of it he seemed to have a very reasonable reason to do so, if that plate of lemon-cakes in his hand said anything anyhow.

The pale elf waved him off, “No Roland, if I’m punished for trying to teach her a lesson then I’m punished, she needs to know she can’t demand and just expect to get things – she’s no shemlen.”

She didn’t know she had gasped until the two of them looked over at her, nor did she realize she was laughing either.

“What is it, Quill?” ‘Roland’ asked of her, and the fact he knew her name and said it as though it meant something she stored away briefly before she continued to laugh.

Eventually she did manage to answer, though it was more due to the fact that the head cook (a burly, mountain of a man with extremely large horns, he reminded her of a bull) kept glaring at her and so she quietened down with her face taking on a smirk.

“I’m not allowed to say shemlen,”

“With good reason too,” Roland muttered but his wife (Quill decides it has to be, they keep looking at each other in ways she’s only seen in public with other couples – she doesn’t really get it, but she tries) only sends him a glare and reaches out to take the plate from him, right under Quill’s nose.

“You can say shemlen whenever you damn well want,” Indiyah grunted angrily before she practically shoved the plate onto her lap, her hand moving to grasp Quill on the shoulder and squeezing, “you’re an elf, you’re not one of them, and you never will be – you call them whatever you’d like as long as you’re discreet about it.”

The fingers that had been wrapped around the first lemon cake stilled for a moment and Quill’s green eyes met Indiyah’s with a look of confusion once more, and so it was not a surprise to her when the young elf merely asked why she, an elven servant, seemed to care what she said and what she did.

“Don’t you know that I can hurt people?”

Indiyah squeezed her shoulder again, “of course I know, but as your mother-“she let that sink in for a few moments, ignoring Roland’s horrified look to stare expectantly at Quill’s expressionless features, “-I’d like to think that maybe, just maybe, you don’t want to.”

Quill’s features hadn’t changed from that apathetic expression even after Indiyah had finished speaking, but her eyes were flickering to and fro between the woman sat at her one side and the man at the other.

For some reason, there was no surprise that was to be expected in her chest, nor the warmth that one was to expect at the realization that they really did have parents – maybe even parents that cared.

All she could feel was curiosity and with that, acceptance.

Quill bit into her lemon cake, savouring the juice of lemon and how it ran down her chin in yellow rivulets.

“I knew you looked like me,” she admitted between bites, swallowing heavily and eyeing the both of them with a frown, “I always told Vel you were, but he told me to be quiet about it.”

She saw her ‘mother’ tense up beside her and inwardly rolled her eyes. Well, mother did seem angry and she wasn’t quite sure if she wanted one if she was going to take offence at the littlest of things that Quill said to her.

“That lying sack of-“

Roland interrupted her, “We didn’t know you were aware of it Quill, we would have done more to contact you, to make it known that we were part of your life.”

Of course they would say that, Quill thought with another roll of her eyes, but she couldn’t deny that there was some sense of truth in her ‘father’s’ words. They didn’t look like the sort to just lie to her, but she knew better to listen to every little thing another elf told her.

Elves in her position, she had heard them whisper (some even to Indiyah) behind their hands to one another, they’re just as bad as the humans.

Quill believed them – what she had just done to Reks had only proven them right, but he was a human and she was an elf.

Would they approve of that?

She didn’t know, and a voice whispered that in reality she wasn’t even certain that she cared what they thought.

So she continued onto her second lemon cake, biting the lemon greedily and sucking on the icing with a small hum of approval leaving her lips. When that was consumed she moved onto her fingers, licking the juice from her fingers and nipping at the skin where sugar still remained.

Indiyah and Roland were watching her as though she had grown a second head, clearly they had expected more from her. Quill didn’t know what she could say to them, that she was curious?

“Is that why you want me to be less demanding?” She said instead, feeling a stir of something in her stomach that made her face scrunch up in frustration even as she took another angry bite of her cake, “because you’re my parents?”

Indiyah rolled her eyes and even Quill had to admit (rather grudgingly) it was similar, “even if I wasn’t, if I had spoken to my mother the way you just did I’d have got my knuckles rapped.”

Roland grinned and held up his hand, exposing the faded scars on his knuckles, “I sadly did speak to my mother the way you did, Quill.”

Her brow furrowed at the cracked, pink skin she could see on her father’s knuckles, marvelling at how such a quick, sharp pain could do that to someone like Roland.

She liked his name better than his title.

“I’m going to call you Roland and Indiyah,” she decided aloud, reaching for the last lemon cake and pinching the icing between her fingers again before she leaned in to lick them clean once more, “and I’m going to tell Vel I want to eat in the kitchens every day. His boring and he smells like blood all the time. I don’t like it.”

She finished the last of her cakes and placed the plate on Indiyah’s lap, getting up from the crate and looking at the both of them, eyes narrowed and her lips remaining a hard line of expression.

Her eyes caught sight of the inked tree on Roland’s skin and the familiarity was shocking in how swift it struck at her.

“Am I Dalish too?”

“Yes!” Both of them answered at the same time with the same bright smiles on their faces, their enthusiasm enough to make Quill step back a few paces, unsure how to react to such fervour in such a small amount of time.

Well that was different, she had always suspected that with the way Vel handled her magic with care that she was not some simple elf with magic – that there had to be something incredibly special about it, and with how she had seen Indiyah and Roland many times over the year to speculate about them and then herself…

It made sense she would be Dalish, of course it did.

She shrugged and pouted her lips, “I want to learn Dalish stuff then. When I come back tomorrow I want to know some Dalish stuff because I can’t stay now, I have to go see if Vel killed Reks.”

As if the guardsman from before had heard her thoughts, Quill spotted him coming from the entrance of the kitchen and ran over towards him without a glance back, her hands going for his and tugging to pull his disgruntled gaze towards her.

“Is Reks dead?”

The guardsman grunted, snatching his hand away from her, “What do you think? Hope the cake was worth it, you little brat.”

“Shut up shemlen,” she muttered darkly and didn’t flinch when a fist swept over her head as she ducked just in time, scrambling between the guard’s legs and rushing out of the kitchen with a breathless laugh.

She rushed past the main chamber and caught sight of a white coverlet being placed over what looked to be a disfigured body, the very top of the white sheet stained an unearthly red colour.

At the sound of footsteps rushing behind her, Quill started to run again.

The cake had been very nice.


	2. violent memoirs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s about the girl,” came the thunderous growl from the disciple, his dark eyes moving away from the goblet at the side table over towards Quill.
> 
> Quill waved, a smirk on her face and Vel laughed, “it’s always about you, isn’t it Quill?”
> 
> “It’s because I’m interesting,” Quill replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place 9:23.

“Why do they always hit them?” Quill asked from where she sat on her chair next to Tisieus Vel, as the sun’s rays glared down upon them with an intensity that made her blonde curls stick to her dark, freckled face, “it’s _not right_.”

Indiyah Lavellan shot her daughter an uneasy look from where she stood at the side of her. It had been a few weeks since they had last seen one another and it pained her to stand so close to Quill once again and yet, like always, could not touch her like she wanted to do so – nor answer her question either, or that was what Vel’s glare towards her said anyhow.

Roland was still in the kitchens, and Creator’s she wished she could join him even for only a moment to whisper in his ear that Quill had seen a guardsman hit a slave and her immediate reaction was to question it.

It didn’t sound like much of a feat, but Indiyah had lived in Tevinter long enough now to understand what Quill’s question truly meant in today’s age.

Vel had placed a hand on Quill’s shoulder then, and it sent another shudder of pride up Indiyah’s spine to see her daughter shrug it away with an expressionless look on her face that made her aggressive, angry movements appear jarring and incomplete. Quill was such a puzzle to understand, but Indiyah allowed herself to have these moments – she wouldn’t change one thing about her, not at all.

“They disobeyed orders, it’s just reminding them to get in line,” Vel explained, clearing his throat loudly to call his own elven servant, Fredrick, over towards him with shaking hands that nervously lifted a silver goblet (adorned with silver stones, to keep the water cool) to the Magister’s lips, “you’ll understand when you’re older Quill, you’re only young.”

Quill turned to look at Indiyah then, eyes rolling to the side, “I already understand, I’m not blind.”

Indiyah smiled behind a hand she used to tuck her own blonde hair behind her ear. There was that surge of pride again, deep in her belly.

Even if Quill couldn’t fully understand what was occurring around her, at least she was aware of it enough that when she saw a noble hitting a young elven servant from below where they sat on the rooftops of Vel’s mansion she could tell something was worth questioning.

All Indiyah wanted to do was touch her, praise her, tell her how clever she was for questioning something that had become so ingrained in the society she lived in that it was unspeakable to consider different.

It was everything she couldn’t do – for Quill’s safety.

“They should hit them back,” Quill said out loud all of a sudden, springing from her chair next to Vel to look over the ledge of the rooftop with her hands planted firmly on her hips, tilted forward, “all of the slaves, they should just hit everyone back because it’s only fair.”

Quill looked at Vel over her shoulder, her ears poking gracelessly out from behind her curls, “fair, right?”

Vel smiled in amusement and Indiyah knew right then what he was going to say, his body posture (slouched, hand moving to caress his jaw tenderly to ease the tension within his mouth) spoke the words for him even before his lips had parted to speak.

He was incredibly smug; “quite right, quite right indeed.”

Quill stared at him for a long time after that, her expression betraying nothing that would incline to him what she was thinking and Indiyah had been grateful for it, to know that her child could force herself not to say or do anything that would allow Vel to have something over her.

_(Though in later years, Indiyah now understood that Quill hadn’t had to force anything back then. That her condition had helped her hide everything, that her suppressed emotions were her strength in a world so ready to sap her at the first sign of weakness, that the only reason she was alive was because she had played Tevinter’s own game against those who wanted to see her die because of whom she was, what she was.)_

“If they hit me, I’ll hit them back,” Quill told the greying Magister with a smirk that sat on her face as though it had always belonged there, and it not being present before was simply her playing a game and now she had finished playing it.

Vel smirked in response and leaned over to the guard to his right, whispering something in his ear that made the guard in particular laugh and look over at Indiyah with a humorous glint in his eyes, barely able to tell behind those dark, embossed masks but present all the same.

It was all in the eyes.

Quill ignored the laughter present, but Indiyah did not feel as lucky. She didn’t have the same hardened skin as her daughter so it seemed, and she cursed herself for it.

She had been in Tevinter, Minrathous for just as long as Quill, and she still hadn’t learned.

Footsteps from Vel’s room that had led them out onto the roof in the first place caused all of them to tense apart from the younger elf who took it upon herself to look carelessly over her shoulder, eyeing the approaching figure with her usual indifferent expression.

He wore thin, black robes (as expected of most of the Archon’s disciples) that stretched tightly over his muscled shoulders, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows in order to give as much breeze as possible (if humid) to satisfy him in the scorching weather. It at least made sense as to why the fabric had been slit in order to expose his chest, tanned and burly like that of the many warriors seen at the Proving Grounds, and explained quite simply on whom the man was.

Indiyah stepped closer to Quill, hand immediately fastening around her shoulder to pull her away from the edge of the roof and to settle her near her side.

Her reward was for Quill to look up at her strangely, as if she knew that what she had just done was a move that if caught by others, would surely risk punishment.

Quill didn’t say anything, her mouth a thin line that said nothing and meant nothing. And her eyes too, that didn’t give away anything either, even when they had moved past Indiyah and Vel and the rest of them to settle on the new participant that would be part of their games today.

Orlais always spoke of The Game as though they were the only ones whom lived it, but Tevinter was something different. More brutal of course, but at least they were sincere about it and didn’t fall to the same false smiles and pleasantries as the rest of Thedas’ nobility.

Indiyah touched a curly lock of Quill’s hair ( _‘stop it,’_ she cursed herself afterwards) before she pulled away completely, tucking her arm behind her back to interlace her hands together – another restraint piled on top of another, all to keep herself from curling her daughter protectively by her side away from the menacing figure that had now stopped in front of Vel’s chair.

Creators, she recognized him well enough underneath that white face-paint and the thick dark lines of charcoal spread under his eyes. Oh she knew all too well who he was…

Vel regarded him with an amused glance and brought his servant over again to take his jug from him to fill the two goblets on his side table with water, clicking his tongue in glee at the impatient sigh he received for his troubles.

“Always on the move, Beck,” he murmured under his breath, picking up one goblet and gesturing for the man in front of him to take the other, “though I have to admit I’m flattered the Archon sent you to me so late in the afternoon – don’t you usually have recruits to educate at this time? Awfully inconsiderate to be-“

“It’s about the girl,” came the thunderous growl from the disciple, his dark eyes moving away from the goblet at the side table over towards Quill.

Quill waved, a smirk on her face and Vel laughed, “it’s always about you, isn’t it Quill?”

“It’s because I’m interesting,” Quill replied and she shrugged at the shocked expression she was presented with by Indiyah, the woman whom claimed (and Quill trusted, surprisingly,) to be her mother, “what? It’s true. Everyone always asks about me.”

Indiyah knew from the way Quill boasted about it that the girl didn’t truly realize the danger she was in, or if she did, she ignored it. The attention seemed to be good enough for her and she wondered briefly if the lack of attention from herself and Roland played a part in that or if Quill being in the general care of a Magister like Vel had thrust her into this position.

‘Beck’ cleared his throat and finally reached down to take the goblet of water that Vel had presented to him, drinking deeply and swallowing loudly when he had finished.

He placed the goblet down, wiping his mouth and smearing the white paint in return.

“The Archon wants her to be placed with him, he has requested this since he understood her potential-“

“No thank you,” Quill interrupted, moving herself away from Indiyah’s grasp on her shoulder to take the seat she had sat in originally, a few paces away from Vel, “The library here is the best, I don’t want to leave.”

Vel cocked his head to the side, moving forward to take the goblet away from a stunned Beck’s hands: “well! She decided for me, and her answer is _my_ answer.”

Beck’s eyes remained as impassive as Quill’s when the both of them turned to face one another, brow arched to study the young elven girl with his lips set to a thin line of that of a grimace. He clearly hadn’t been expecting it, and that was what made a cold shiver travel down Indiyah’s spine…

It was far too rare for one of the Archon’s disciples to be surprised.

“The Archon was elected from the Circle of Magi here in Minrathous, you yourself elected him,” Beck’s surprise quickly melted into a low, husky growl of a voice again and when he drew himself back up from placing his goblet back down it was to simply stand at his full height with his chin tilted up in challenge, “now you deny him this? You’ve kept tabs on the girl since she was young and revealed her talent, surely you would know with what you’ve sent us that we’d want to see for ourselves?”

“The Archon knows that any information worth seeing for himself will be when she’s older, and not a day before!” Vel protested with a shake of his head, silencing himself momentarily to reach over and tap Quill on the shoulder to point her back in the direction where Beck had come from.

Quill scowled, “but you’re talking about me-“

Vel waved impatiently at Indiyah, “get her out of here, take her back wherever you take her and keep her there until it’s time for her to sleep-“

“-but what about my Tevene? Professor-“

He waved his hand again, smacking her sharply on the back of her head and glaring when she raised her fist in retaliation, her eyes sending a sharp warning that made him sit much straighter with his cold, blue eyes piercing into her own.

Indiyah’s hand settled over Quill’s fist, rubbing her hand gently over the tensed skin to guide it back to the young elf’s side with an effort that made her arm shake, all in an effort to maintain Quill from doing anything she would later regret.

“Come, Quill,” she whispered into her ear, moving a blonde curl from behind her ear and helping her up to her feet with a hand settling on her shoulder to direct her, “we can go sit in the library for a while, would you like that?”

“I don’t like anything at all because I don’t feel anything at all,” Quill replied back with a snap to her tone that made her chest feel as though it was being restricted by her voice alone, preventing her from doing anything she wanted, from feeling anything she wanted.

Anger was the only thing that made sense – and so Quill clung onto it like drowning man would to driftwood, hoping against hope that was all that would be required of her.

When Indiyah’s hand caressed the tip of her ear she moved away from her with a grunt, throwing a look over her shoulder at Beck and Vel that made both men shake their heads and a small murmur of ‘control’ was passed between the two of them.

She just wanted to hit the both of them and glared at Indiyah beside her when she pressed her forward when she stopped: “why do you keep making me move? I want to go back!”

“He’ll hurt you if you go back,” Indiyah said with a tone to her voice that Quill guessed was concern of some sort, if that was what concern was meant to sound like. It sounded like someone had constricted their grip around Indiyah’s throat and had squeezed, trapping thought and sensibility to only leak desperation from her pink lips.

Quill didn’t want her concern, she didn’t _need_ it: “I don’t care if they hurt me.”

“ _I care_ ,” was whispered back and got lost in the darkness of Vel’s room, the stone carvings of snakes that adorned the room hissing menacingly at the warmth that had been apparent in the whisper, chasing it away with a foulness and poison that was detailed on the tip of each fang they passed.

Tevinter was sullen and dark, and Vel’s room and the stench of death that was apparent in it followed them all the way until they got to the servant’s quarters where colour sprang up from the darkest of corners, shading the room with the red of walls and the yellow of old, tacky jewellery some of the servants had stuck there – a reminder of home.

Often the guards would rip the jewellery, the fabrics and even the countless scarves of various colours down from the walls but without fail (or at least every time Quill had been here) when a new morning would come they would be back up, damaged perhaps, but just as pretty.

She hadn’t understood why they kept trying to fight. It wasn’t worth it. None of these pieces of fabrics or jewellery or fancy colours were worth getting killed for, surely they would one day realize that?

But lately, even she had to admit there was something…exhilarating in defying what people named as ‘your superiors’.

The elves there saw her as one however, Quill could tell by their dark eyes and the hatred that was present each step she took with Indiyah at her side.

She didn’t care, she was angry with them and their ignorance. She was like them too, she was trapped too – why couldn’t they realize that?

Indiyah and Roland had said she would have been Dalish once upon a time, and her freedom would have been stupendous and beautiful in comparison to this ‘dark hole’ that all three of them had fallen in; that she would have been able to do what she liked, listen to what she liked, lived how she would have liked…

Quill didn’t believe them, even with what she knew about the Dalish from stories and right from her ‘parents’ mouths.

No elf was free, because shemlen existed. That was what she knew, and she assumed it was more than likely right.

But to everyone around her (to everyone that mattered anyway) she was just as human as the Magisters and it made her want to yell and hit out at them all, violence her only friend and anger her drug as her imagination formed a picture: her screaming, yelling and flailing with words of rage and indignity.

_‘I am elvhen!’_

She was eight years old and elvhen, and anyone who thought differently simply did not understand.

One of the eldest elven servant glared at her as Indiyah led her to her own cot, and Quill only stared back expressionlessly. There was nothing she could do, all she could do was watch and feel amused when the elf in response spat and muttered insults under her breath.

The woman had wispy grey hair that only just about covered the brand of when she had belonged to her old master before Vel had brought her. It was an ugly, stark thing and Quill felt an odd sense of coiling within her belly that made her stare at the woman a second longer before she sighed and allowed Indiyah to wrap a blanket around her legs, pushing her back more comfortably on her cot.

She felt Indiyah’s hand to go the back of her head and moved away, her jaw clenched in frustration at Indiyah’s narrowed eyes staring back at her: “I’m fine.”

“Your father would want you to be checked over, now _stay_ still.”

Quill wanted to argue, but she felt too exhausted to do so now that her mind was far too occupied on the quick sting that Vel’s hand had caused and how that truly had been nothing considering what she had seen in living here, and even how in reality her desire to hit back seemed to strengthen each time the sting became apparent.

“Next time I’ll hit him back,” she said aloud, not realizing that she had done so until Indiyah had sighed and shook her head vehemently in reply, “that’s all the shemlen do to us, and they just hit us and hurt us. We should hit back.”

“Do that,” Indiyah gripped her chin, tilting it upwards to stare into her eyes that were devoid of anything she could decipher in order to get through to her, “and you’ll get yourself killed, doesn’t matter if the Archon has an interest in you – you’ll be dead before you can raise your hand.”

“They raise it all the time to the slaves and servants,” Quill argued, her frustration digging deep once more into the tone of her voice.

Indiyah stopped holding her chin then and the hardness that had been present in her eyes before had softened into something tenderer than what Quill was comfortable with, expressed as clearly as she dear hoped with how she moved away from Indiyah’s hand on her knee and her eyes set straight ahead.

She didn’t like this, and felt strangely relieved when Indiyah sighed and moved her hand away.

“Sweetheart,” a typical term of affection Quill supposed, “as horrible as this may sound, please take my advice when I say that you…that you shouldn’t care about what happens to these people around you – not even me and Roland, it doesn’t matter. Don’t get yourself killed trying to protect these people, get rid of that care-“

Quill’s head snapped to her right, her brow creased in confusion at Indiyah’s words: “care? I don’t care about them. I don’t care about any of them here, it doesn’t matter what happens to them.”

This time she put her hand on her own knee, gripping the blanket so tightly it turned her knuckles white.

“The concept of it,” she explained slowly, as though Indiyah was the child and she the tutor that was so desperate to educate, “the concept of it...Makes me angry.”

Indiyah looked at her for a long time after that, her skin (already so white and sickly-looking) paling to a sallow, ghastly colour that Quill assumed was fear. Fear for what, she didn’t really know, but the fear present there made her sit up straighter and for her head to tilt to the side to examine Indiyah with her scrutinizing eyes.

When Indiyah looked like she had recovered Quill was shocked to see that she had wrapped a single arm around her shoulders without her becoming aware of it, the sudden, heavy weight there made her want to jump out of her skin and from sheer will alone she forced herself to remain as still as possible like she was supposed to do.

She had seen mothers hold their children before and they had never ran off, that was just part of society’s typical norms was it not?

Quill’s lip curled up in distaste.

And that brush of fingers against her forehead? What was…

“I can see why they like you Quill,” Indiyah told her and held her close once again, letting go only moments later with the excuse of having to go get those lemon cakes prepared for her in the kitchens.

Quill bit her lip and wondered whether these brief flashes of violence behind her eyelids were what caused her understanding of what Indiyah had said, or she had simply known all along.

 


End file.
